“Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.”   – PLATO

“A good president is one who gets elected.”   – ADOLPH MENJOU, IN THE 1948 FILM STATE OF THE UNION

“The world needs honest men more than it needs presidents.”   – SPENCER TRACY IN STATE OF THE UNION

POINTS TO PONDER

1.

“The US is the best looking horse in the glue factory.”
-ERSKINE BOWLES, CO-AUTHOR OF THE SIMPSON-BOWLES DEFECIT REDUCTION PLAN.

“We have a leaderless government right now.”
-ALAN SIMPSON, THE PLAN’S OTHER CO-AUTHOR.

A most important election. Presidential elections are almost always over-hyped. Typically, they don’t live up to their billing as the newly elected “messiah” finds himself unable to alter the nation’s course as he and his supporters had hoped (and promised).

“Every monetary policy action has costs and benefits, and my assessment is that the potential costs and risks associated with these actions (QE3) outweigh the potential meager benefits.” 
-CHARLES PLOSSER, PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF PHILADELPHIA

POINTS TO PONDER

1. Looking at a collection of US economic data makes the stock market’s ebullience since early June even more perplexing. 

“The fact that the Keynesians…are in total disarray just shows that their global explanation of how the world works is simply wrong.  If Keynesian policies worked France should be booming today.”  
-CHARLES GAVE

The game that will live in infamy.  Silly me—after all these years I thought CNBC was actually a financial news network. 

“What we need is a central bank that has the humility not to do what it cannot do. And the Fed cannot do what others have failed to do, namely to plan an economy from a central desk in the capital city.” 
-JIM GRANT, FOUNDER OF GRANT’S INTEREST RATE OBSERVER.

POINTS TO PONDER

1.